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Suchmaschinen:
German Search Engines

There are lots of search engines and directories on the Web, and About.com is one of the best! (See the search feature at the top of this page.) Using just about any search engine will allow you to find some German material. But if you're serious about finding German-language sources on the Web, sooner or later you need to use a German search engine.

Germans are big on the Internet and all the major search engines have a German version. There are German editions of Google, AltaVista, Excite, Lycos, Yahoo, and all the rest. But there are also a number of Suchmaschinen that are either German-specific or country-specific (google.at, google.ch). Usually, you will have better luck finding German-language material or sites using a German search engine rather than an American or British one. Google.de gives you more positive results for German than Google.com, for instance. Most also allow you the choice to search only "deutsche Seiten" or "weltweite Seiten." This can be very helpful when searching with German words that can also be English (e.g., bald, lag, stern, etc.), since most search engines are not case sensitive and ignore capitalization. Searching only the German (or Austrian, Swiss) Web can help eliminate possible English confusion and reduce "clutter."

One more thing. Don't forget to look at and search the Web sites of various German-language publications. For instance, we recently reviewed the extensive STERN-Online site. A search at that site would find material that a general Web search may not reveal. STERN also has its own "Suche" box its the top banner.

The same is true for a German news weekly such as FOCUS, a newspaper such as TAZ, or any other online newspaper or magazine in Austria, Germany, or Switzerland. (See our Reading links for German periodicals.) Another good periodical search resource is Google.de News or Paperball.

Below is a brief guide to some of the best German search engines and additional Web resources for German. For a much more extensive list of German search engines see our links for Suchmaschinen.

Suchmaschinen

Abacho
Used to be "Spider"-a German directory and search engine. Abacho is also connected with the German eBay.